Greg Davies’s Disco Forum ’80 at Stevenage Bo Jangles on Tuesday February 19th seems angled at DJ’s disgruntled with record company mailing list policies, the panel including John Waller (Phonogram), Theo Loyla (Polydor), Fred Dove (WEA), Roger St Pierre (Funk Funktion) – £2 tickets (cheques to “Bo Jangles Club”) and full details of the 8pm-2am event from Greg at Bo Jangles, 58 Oueensway, Stevenage, Herts (04626-76432 or 0234-741462) . . . Soho’s Groove Records shop held a private party at Mayfair Gullivers before Christmas for some of their regular customers – there can’t be many other shops to have done likewise, but as they said, “you all paid for it”! . . . Chris Brown, who actually offered his own cigarettes around at the Groove party, is currently compiling a lavish photo book about the UK jazz-funk scene, to be called ‘I Was There – The “Family” Album’ . . . Big Tom Holland the bun eater is going freelance as his Ilford Lacy Lady residency is closing the disco room . . . Gary Oldis has been promoted out of Aycliffe’s Gretna Green to tour the North-East’s FLD-owned disco chain with a sexy five gal one guy dancing troupe called Bad Girls Plus, while the chain’s latest link is the Harts Horn Disco in Knaresborough’s Market Place . . . Redcar’s Coatham Hotel, the Cleveland area’s biggest ballroom, is due to reopen as a disco . . . Paul Clark (Brighton Papillon) wonders if anyone’s got that old multi-coloured Eastside Connection 12in for sale as his has been nicked . . . Sally Ormsby, Steve Wiggins (Barry Rugby Club) awaits your reply to his fifteen letters! . . . New Mods asking for Madness ‘One Step Beyond’ at funk discos seem to be the current equivalent of the old Status Quo brigade – any other jocks reaching the same conclusion?! . . . Edwin Starr ‘Contact’ synchs perfectly out of Slick ‘Space Bass’, as I discovered during my mixing “duel” with Froggy in Erith!

THE DESTINY ORCHESTRA: ‘Spring Rain’ (Destiny OS 1)
Beautifully recorded sound effects-enhanced lush 56/113-119-120bpm 12in cover of Silvetti’s much imported 1977 piano-plonked Spanish-recorded salsoul instrumental jogger, flipped with the version of ‘Green Onions’ subsequently leased to Casino Classics for release as by Mods 79, AND a reggae version too of ‘Green Onions’ that’s even better!

LOVE DE-LUXE WITH HAWKSHAW’S DISCOPHONIA: ‘Here Comes That Sound Again’ (Atlantic K 11359) (BNDA debut 6/30/79)
. . . And again and again and again! The ultra simple UK-recorded chix chanted 116bpm disco thudder is revived now on 7in a year after initial release and six months since its remixed US success because finally Radio One has caught up with it.

SYLVESTER: ‘You Are My Friend’ (from LP ‘Living Proof’, Fantasy FT 573)
Gospel-drenched superb “live” 33bpm Patti LaBelle slowie keeps reminding me of ‘At The Dark End Of The Street’ and is his best even if somewhat specialist soul track . . . though not as good as I heard him do it in New York last February!

STEVIE WONDER: ‘Black Orchid’ (Motown TMG 1173)
Commodores-type 32bpm 7in smoocher with distinctive bass synthesizer and tinkling spinet-type tones. Who said he should be on Stiff?!

SYMARIP: ‘Skinhead Moonstomp’ (Trojan TROT 9061)
British-recorded 63/127bpm reggae rallying call (with Madness-type intro) by the renamed Pyramids always did seem contrived at the time in ‘69 but is out again on 12in for New Mods.

NOVA: ‘The Theme From The Black Hole’ (Epic EPC 8145)
Sub-‘Star Wars’ space movie theme on 123bpm 7in is more varied but less hard hitting than the synthesizer-dominated 125bpm version by Nostromo (Bronze BRO 86), evidently due also on 12in.

NEIL DIAMOND: ‘I’m A Believer’ (CBS 8130)
Gentle samba-style MoR revival of the hit he wrote for the Monkees.

Import reviews return next week after the Christmas break, when hopefully the trickle will become a stream again, making it worth my while once more to take stopwatch and BPM counter back to Groove and earn inquisitive stares from the customers as I tap out the beat while timing all the newies on headphones!

So 1980 has arrived and the new decade opens with Rapper’s Delight at No1 on the chart- little did we know of the massive impact that record would ultimately have- probably as influential as any early Elvis or Beatles record on the development of popular music and culture that still reverberates to this day! The first assault on the charts by an adult Michael Jackson is in mid stream well before the Thriller juggernaut and the “wacko” craziness. Interesting to read the contemporary review of Dan Hartman’s “Relight My Fire”- a record that over the years has become an iconic classic. A very underwhelming matter of fact review that mentions the “wailing chick”. That “wailing chick” was of course the now legendary Loletta Holloway who obviously didn’t register highly on Hamilton’s radar back in the day! He also has a real dislike of Amii Stewart judging by his reviews of various releases- on this occasion I have to agree! A number of the classic disco productions from the zenith of the movement are still hovering around the chart but we increasingly see a shift in the tempo/production and style of recordings that are beginning to dominate…